Wiles told TODAY Home she hired Homepolish, a digital design company whose rapid success is perhaps most evident on its glossy Instagram page where it's amassed nearly 2 million followers, to redo her family's Manhattan apartment last spring.
"I don't remember at what point I started following them on Instagram," she said. "But I was hearing about them from so many people."
Wiles said she'd been shocked by how much traditional interior designers were charging.
"In New York, it's really expensive," she said. "So the first two people I called, just based on finding their stuff online or in magazines, had a minimum engagement of $400,000 — they wouldn't even talk to you otherwise. That's way, way out of our budget."
But Homepolish seemed like an affordable option, she said. When she signed up online, she was asked how much she was planning to spend on a renovation. Wiles chose the highest bucket: $75,000 and up.
"I thought, oh, we'll be among their most important clients," she said. "I didn't want to have some rinky-dink renovation. We were redoing our kitchen, both bathrooms and we wanted to redecorate the whole place and get a bunch of built-ins. It wasn't small."
But what happened in the next year was a total nightmare, Wiles said.
"It just seemed like everything was measured incorrectly and everything looks like crap," she said.
Multiple designers who worked for Homepolish confirmed the details of the conference call to TODAY and said the company still owes them thousands of dollars. They also stressed that despite Wiles' experience, many of the designers who worked for Homepolish are competent professionals who care deeply about their clients' satisfaction. In fact, some of them are still working with clients they acquired through Homepolish, even though they don't anticipate being paid for their work.
"I'll push through and make sure the client gets what they paid for, even though I'm not being paid," designer Crystal Sinclair told TODAY. "Which isn't fair, but it's not fair on the other end, either."
As for Wiles, she's already spent tens of thousands of dollars repairing the work done during her renovation and has given up hope that Homepolish will address her issues. She wants others to learn from her story.
"Don't trust things by what you see online," she said. "In the same way that people only post shots that make themselves look beautiful, you can do the same thing with home decor. I would say really research any decorator that you're looking at. On their Instagram, ask them what did they do and what is inspiration, because it's often not clear."
"It's such a personal relationship," she told TODAY. "When you're hiring a designer, get their portfolio and get their references, and make sure the two of you fit."
A recording that picks up on Homepolish's office phone number still directs customers to sign up on its website. As Wiles pointed out, there's no news of the company shutting down on its Instagram page, either, although in recent days, its comments section has been plagued by angry customers who can't get in touch with the company.
Homepolish is only one of multiple internet-minded companies that have attempted to bring interior design to the masses at an affordable price point.
"It brought design to a whole group of people that wouldn't have been able to afford it if they went to a higher-end interior design firm," Caster said. "The concept was great. The execution failed."
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